When critical theory met literary studies in the 1970s and '80s, some of the most radical and exciting theoretical work centred on the quasi-sacred figure of Shakespeare. In Alternative Shakespeares, John Drakakis brought together key essays by founding figures in this movement to remake Shakespeare studies.
A new afterword by Robert Weimann outlines the extraordinary impact of Alternative Shakespeares on academic Shakespeare studies. But as yet, the Shakespeare myth continues to thrive both in Stratford and in our schools. These essays are as relevant and as powerful as they were upon publication and with a contributor list that reads like a 'who's who' of modern Shakespeare studies, Alternative Shakespeares demands to be read.
1 Introduction 2 Swisser-Swatter: making a man of English letter 3 Post-structuralist Shakespeare: text and ideology 4 Deconstructing Shakespeare's comedies 5 Sexuality in the reading of Shakespeare: Hamlet and Measure for Measure 6 Reading the signs: towards a semiotics of Shakespearean drama translated by Keir Elam 7 Shakespeare in ideology 8 Disrupting sexual difference: meaning and gender in the comedies 9 Nymphs and reapers heavily vanish: the discursive contexts of The Tempest 10 History and ideology: the instance of Henry V
